The IPL 2021 was suspended with immediate effect earlier this week after there was a rise in the COVID-19 cases within the franchise teams.
In a chat with The Indian Express, the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) president Sourav Ganguly has talked about organising the IPL at this hour, bio-bubble breach and the future plans for holding this edition of the tournament later in the year.
Ganguly insisted that he doesn’t really think that having the IPL was a problem initially because when the decision was taken, the situation in the country wasn't alarming. “No. When we decided, the number was not even close to this. We did the England tour successfully,” he said.
The former India captain further said that there were talks about taking the IPL 2021 to UAE. But as there wasn’t any major rise in the cases during the month of February, it was then decided to hold the cash-rich league in India itself.
“It was discussed, but the (COVID-19 cases) in India in February was (virtually) nothing. It has just gone through the roof in the last three weeks. Before that it was nothing. We discussed about the UAE but then decided to do it in India,” he Ganguly said.
Speaking about resuming the tournament, the BCCI president said that it would be an ‘early call’ to make. “We will see. It’s too early to say,” the former left-handed batsman said.
When asked about whether there was a bio-bubble breach, Ganguly denied the claims and clearly said that the report that the board had got was that there was no breach of the bubble.
“I don’t think so. The report we got is that there’s no breach of the bubble. How it happened is very difficult to say. How so many people are getting (infected) in the country is also very difficult to say,” Ganguly said.
KKR’s Sandeep Warrior and Varun Chakravarthy, SRH’s Wriddhiman Saha, DC’s Amit Mishra and CSK’s bowling coach L.Balaji had tested positive for COVID-19 after which the IPL 2021 was suspended.